


The Understanding He Lacks

by ScandalousMinds



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, BAMF Mrs. Hudson, Gen, M/M, Mycroft Being Mycroft, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Poor John, Poor Molly, Poor Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, Protective Lestrade, Sad, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Holmes is Bad at Feelings, Sherlock doesn't understand, Sherlock is bad with words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:33:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScandalousMinds/pseuds/ScandalousMinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock doesn't understand why everyone is so upset when he comes back.</p><p>Written for a prompt.<br/>For prompt please check notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Understanding He Lacks

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own. I just really love the fandom.  
> Apologies for any errors.
> 
> Written with this prompt in mind:  
> http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/22393.html?thread=132664953#t132664953

“JOHN! JOHN! Calm down!” Lestrade’s hold on John tightened tenfold. His clasped arms around John’s upper body, were like a vice that only strengthened the harder John fought against him.

“John, love calm down. _Please_.” Mrs Hudson clung to Molly’s grip on her arm as her other trembling hand grasped her handkerchief over her quivering lips. Molly simply remained in terrified silence as she watched Lestrade wrestle with the unsurprisingly strong army-doctor.

“TWO YEARS!” John growled. “Two years! You let me believe you were DEAD! TWO YEARS!” tears were building in John’s eyes but his stare never wavered from their target.

They never wavered from Sherlock.

Sherlock who was supposed to be dead. Sherlock who John had watched jumped off the roof at Bart’s. Sherlock, who was standing here in front of him in the middle of his birthday party, looking at John as if _John_ were the ghost.

“How could you do that? How could you do that to me…to all of us? **How**?”

“Answer him.” Mycroft’s voice was soft but Sherlock could hear the distinct tones of an ‘I told you so’ within it.

“I…I…I don’t understand.”

Molly shook her head softly. “You should get on a t-shirt. Just say, Sherlock. Just tell him.”

John’s eyes finally snapped off of Sherlock and on to Molly. His eyes flashed so many emotions so quickly that even Sherlock had trouble keeping up with them. “Molly? What—what are you…what do you mean ‘just tell him?’ Did—did you know? Did you know about this?”

Molly eye’s shone as she took an aborted step forwards. “Oh, John. I’m…I…I’m so, so sorry.”

John’s face flashed every emotion he was feeling on his face. Shock, hurt, disappointment, sadness, anger and then fury.” At the last one Mrs Hudson stepped backwards and pulled Molly behind her.

“You… you watched me grieve. You—you WATCHED me _grieve._ I came to your house. I cried on your shoulder. YOU WATCHED ME GRIEVE!”

“I’m sorry.” Molly cried but John just shook his head as if trying to shake away the words he’d just heard.

“I thought you were my friend. _You were supposed to be my friend_.”

Molly scrubbed harshly at the tears on her face. “I am. I am your friend.”

John shook his head even move at that. “No. No. friends don’t do this! Friends. Don’t. Do. This!”

Molly glanced at Lestrade in desperation. Hoping he’d help her find the words, all she found there was the same look in John’s eyes only duller and filled with more disappointment. John saw the look and glanced over his shoulder his eyes red and burning with accusations.

“Did you know? Did you know too? I swear if you did—“

“I didn’t mate! I swear I would never do that. I would never be able too. I swear it!” Lestrade assured.

The room was silent. The twenty plus people in the room weren’t even muttering amongst themselves, too stunned into silence to react. Too uncomfortable with John’s palpable hurt to enjoy the drama of it all.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Mrs Hudson’s voice was harsher than Sherlock had ever heard it before. “Well?”

“I—I—I still don’t understand.” Sherlock stuttered out.

Mrs Hudson scoffed but it caught in her throat. “And, I suppose that should be on the back of the t-shirt.”

“I—I” words were failing to form in Sherlock’s mouth.

“What, do you have to say?” Mrs Hudson asked again, this time her voice held even more grit.

Sherlock frowned in confusion, asking the only question he couldn't grasp the answer to. “Why are you all so angry?”

Sherlock didn’t register the slap until Mrs Hudson had pulled her hand back clutching it to her throat. Mycroft couldn’t keep the look of surprise off his face, neither in fact could Sherlock. Out of everyone both brothers had thought would become violent, Mrs Hudson was not high up on the list. The slap had reverberated so loudly around the room, Mycroft had actually winced in sympathy of the pain it must have caused. For an older woman Mrs Hudson had some strength behind her.

“How dare you! How _dare_ you ask such a _stupid question._ Look at him, look what you did! Do you know? Do you even know what you did to him, I mean to all of us but…to _him?_ Do you know?”

Sherlock had nothing, his brain was faltering on him. I—I”

“Oh, Sherlock.” Mrs Hudson stepped away and Sherlock wanted to reach out for her. To cradle her hand to his cheek where it was still smarting. He wanted her to rub it better and tell him what he had done so wrong, to tell him why they were all so angry.

Mycroft broke the contemptible silence. Watching his brother’s distress and lack of understanding was too hard to bare any longer. Sherlock had been flailing on the ropes for too long.

“Brother mine, I fear your silence is or perhaps should I say… lack of explanation is playing a detrimental role at present. Perhaps you should tell them why you did what you did. Allow them to understand how you intentions were sincere and completely based within the realms of sentiment.”

It appeared it was Lestrade’s turn for righteous anger. “ _Realms of sentiment?_ He made him watch him jump of a bloody building! There’s no sentiment in _that!_ Having John believe… _him_ over there had offed himself because nobody believed in him. Leaving us all to deal with the **guilt** of that… that wasn’t sentiment mate! _That...that was **cruelty**._ ”

Mycroft watched Lestrade’s mouth fold into a thin, dangerous line. And, didn’t miss how obviously very tempted the detective inspector looked to simply loosen his hold on the former army-doctor and allow him to do as he willed. Mycroft was very grateful however that the DI quickly shook off the instinct. Although, the elder Holmes was under no illusions. He knew the denied action was purely for John’s benefit rather than either of the Holmes’.

“I admit, the execution of my brother’s actions were at best flawed and at worst idiotic…” Sherlock barely even reacted to the dig, his attentions still so rapt on the smaller man before him. “However, I give my word that there were valid and good reasonings behind what he did.”

John had apparently stopped struggling either due to exhaustion or because he had realised his resistance against Lestrade’s hold was futile. When he spoke again, his voice was devoid of any emotion other than a tired sort of defeated resignation.  

“Why Sherlock? Why did you do it? Tell me...tell me and I’ll listen.”

“I…Moriarty…” John flinched at the name and in turn so did the detective. “ _He_ …he had snipers…he would of killed you. I—I had no choice. I had to.”

“You had no choice? You had to? Okay. So, how does Molly fit in? No. No, you don’t need tell me how she provided you with the body, I worked that bit out myself, despite being the biggest fool in London, it would seem. No, I got that far. I get Mycroft’s bit to, that's obvious. But, I mean when did you tell Molly? When did you tell Mycroft? I’m also guessing the people standing around weren’t just randoms off the street well…in relatively speaking anyway. So, network?”

Sherlock just nodded. He could see where this was going.

“Right. So when did you manage to ask Molly, Mycroft and a dozen or so tramps to help you? It wasn’t on the roof because I was speaking to you on the roof. So, when did you tell _them_ your plan?”

Sherlock swallowed thickly, he had no answer John would like.

“Hmm? Why them? Why not me or Lestrade?”

“You, were…unnecessary.” Everyone in the room drew in a collective breath apart from John, Sherlock and Mycroft. Mycroft simply closed his eyes and shook his head, John chuckled but his laugh held no humour what so ever within it and Sherlock simply eyed them both simultaneously until his brains playback of his words caught up with him. “No. No, John—that’s not—I didn’t mean—I meant unnecessary to the plan. The **plan** , John!”

“No, no you’re right. Unnecessary is apt description of my role within your life.”

“No, it’s not!” Sherlock stepped forward and John instantly tensed causing Lestrade's hold tightened a little once more. “Mori—He would have killed you. He would have killed you, Mrs Hudson and Lestrade. He would have ended **your** life, if I hadn’t ended mine. So, I made a choice. My life for yours and I didn’t—I didn’t realise my death would affect you the way it did. I didn’t think! I thought you’d go on as before. I thought you’d be okay. You had Mrs Hudson and Lestrade and Molly and, and even Mycroft to look out for you. I didn’t think you’d care!”

An exasperated breath escaped Mycroft’s lips. “Brother mine, your words are hanging a noose around your neck.”

Sherlock threw a disdainful look at Mycroft that said ‘shut-up-Mycroft-I-see-how-badly-I’m-doing-I-don't-need-you-to-inform-me-of-such-obvious-facts-shut-up!’

John tried out the words on his tongue as if unsure of how they tasted. “You, didn’t _think I’d care_ is that what you just—you didn’t think I’d _care_?”

Sherlock instantly tried to backtrack. “I—I knew you’d grieve but I thought you’d…get over it. Move on.”

“So, let me get this straight. You jumped off a roof because Mor—because that sick little psycho said he’d kill us all. You jumped because **you** didn’t want to…what? Be the one grieving?”

“My death was faked. Yours wouldn’t have been.”

“Well it felt pretty real to me, to _us._ It didn’t feel fake when I was stood at your graveside. That felt very bloody real to me.”

“Your death would have been…unacceptable.”

“And, what makes you think yours wasn’t?”

“I don’t matter!”

“YOU MATTER TO ME! You don’t get to decide to do something like this. _This was unacceptable. This matters!_ ”

“Losing you was not an option! I won’t apologise for that! I WILL NEVER BE SORRY FOR IT!”

John sighed and looked down at the ground, a tear escaping the corner of his left eye as he began to speak. “Today was my birthday. The first birthday in two years I even made an effort to try to participate in. Do you see that cake over there? Mrs Hudson baked it. It’s beautiful. It’s Victoria sponge, my favourite. But, do you know what? I barely even noticed it, because when I saw that cake I just saw the candles. I just saw my wish. Do you know what I wished for? I wished that you’d come back. But, it turns out you were never actually gone. So, I suppose it was a wasted one.” John looked up but he didn’t look at Sherlock. John turned slightly towards Lestrade pulling free from his arms. Lestrade obviously seeing John was no longer a threat let go without any real fight.

“Well, I think I’m going to go home. Thanks for the party everyone, sorry it didn’t go to plan. But, hey, what does?” John walked towards the door and didn’t look back, the door closed quietly behind him and the room stood frozen in static silence.

Molly was the first to speak. “Aren’t you going to go after him?”

Sherlock shook his head numbly. “I think he wants a moment. I’ll try again at home, when I get back to Baker Street.”

Mycroft was the next to speak. “Baker Street? Sherlock, he doesn’t live there anymore.”

Sherlock’s heart stuttered at the words, the thought processes of his mind jamming.

His hand instinctively moving to rest over his chest Sherlock looked into his brother’s eyes with a vulnerability Mycroft hadn’t seen since… _Redbeard_.

The words Sherlock uttered were exactly the same as all those years before.                   

 

“But…I don’t _understand_.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This got angstier than I anticipated it would, I wrote it in a couple hours or so. So, I apologise if it's a bit off in any ways.  
> It does veer of the prompt a tad (at least I think, it does ) but I tried to keep the essence the same.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this story.  
> Any feedback is always welcome.


End file.
